[WSIS CS-Plenary] Re: [WSIS CS-Plenary] Re: [WSIS CS-Plenary] Me, ‘Person of the Year’? No thanks

[Carlos Afonso]

Dear Bertrand and all,

If we could combine Siva Vaidhyanathan's text with your formulation we
would have an excellent base for monitoring of trends regarding
empowerment/disempowerment of the community (and the commons) in cyberspace.

fraternal regards

--c.a.

Bertrand de La Chapelle wrote:
> Thanks Ralf for pointing to this post.
> 
> I also read the Time issue very carefully. And what came to my mind is that
> this issue was not so much about "You" but about two major trends that
> structure today's cyberspace community : the "Me" trend and the "We" trend.
> 
> The "Me" trend is about expression, individual voices, everybody's capacity
> to contribute and be recognized. It's the power of Blogs, posting of
> individual videos, etc... At best it is empowerment of the individual, the
> recognition that everybody can bring something to the community, a
> redistribution of power between the haves and the have not, a possible
> refoundation of democracy and a many to many interaction. At worst it can
> become a mere popularity contest, irrespective of the nature of the
> contribution to society, a marketing exploitation for maximum personnal
> profit and the aspiration of everybody to his/her wharolian 15 minutes of
> fame, just the usual desire for individual power through other means.
> 
> The "We" trend is about community, sharing, collective intelligence and
> collaboration. It's the rise of the open source, creative commons and open
> acces movements, the success of wikipedia and the rating mechanisms of
> tagging sites. In its best form it is about the social fabric, about
> solidarity, the spreading of knowledge and respect gained from a
> disinterested contribution to the common good. At worst, it can be the
> refusal of any retribution for creative work, the exploitation of generous
> work by coporate interests, or ultimately the risk of a totalitarian
> preeminence of the community at the expense of individuals.
> 
> Both trends are made possible by the technological innovations that emerged
> in the last years, and the fact that digital content is reproductible at
> almost no cost and therefore shareable if we want to.
> 
> Individuals can be more of one fabric or the other but most people have 
> both
> dimensions in varying degrees : we all are willing to contribute and share
> and at the same time want some recognition and reward. Both trends are
> positive but I believe even more so when they are combined. But both can be
> dangerous if they want to reign alone and refuse the existence of another
> model than their own.
> 
> The challenge the global Internet community is facing is to find the
> appropriate rules for coexistence of the two facets, the best way to 
> harness
> their positive potential and avoid their respective drawbacks, to design 
> the
> best framework for everybody to feel at ease with one's personnal 
> balance of
> choice and to create the maximum social and ecomonic value. Defining these
> rules and the appropriate decision-making procedures to elaborate them is,
> among other things, what Internet Governance is about. In other words : 
> what
> kind of digital society do we want to create ? And it's up to all
> stakeholders to define that together.
> 
> Best wishes to everybody for the Year 2007. May it see progress in human
> understanding.
> 
> Best
> 
> Bertrand
> 
> _________________
> Bertrand de La Chapelle is the French Foreign Ministry's Special Envoy for
> the Information Society.
> The views above are a personal contribution and not an official position of
> the French government.
> 
> 
> On 1/3/07, Ralf Bendrath <bendrath at zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
>>
>> [Please note that by using 'REPLY', your response goes to the entire 
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>> Kindly use individual addresses for responses intended for specific 
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>>
>> Click http://wsis.funredes.org/plenary/ to access automatic 
>> translation of
>> this message!
>> _______________________________________
>>
>> <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16371425/>
>>
>> Me, 'Person of the Year'? No thanks
>> For some reason I just don't feel as empowered as you think I feel
>>
>> By Siva Vaidhyanathan
>> MSNBC contributor
>> Updated: 2:06 p.m. ET Dec. 28, 2006
>>
>> Consider this: the flagship publication of one of the most powerful media
>> conglomerates in the world declares that flagship publications and
>> powerful media conglomerates no longer choose where to hoist flags or
>> exercise power.
>>
>> That's exactly what happened last week when Time Magazine declared its
>> Person of the Year to be you, me, and everyone who contributes content to
>> new media aggregators like MySpace, Amazon, Facebook, YouTube, Ebay,
>> Flickr, blogs and Google.
>>
>> "It's about the many wrestling power from the few and helping one another
>> for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change
>> the ways the world changes," Lev Grossman breathlessly writes in Time.
>> Story continues below ↓ advertisement
>>
>> "And for seizing the reins of the global media," Grossman says, "for
>> founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing
>> and beating the pros at their own game, Time's Person of the Year for 
>> 2006
>> is you."
>>
>> Well, thank you, Time, for hyping me, overvaluing me, using me to sell my
>> image back to me, profiling me, flattering me, and failing to pay me. As
>> soon as I saw myself on my local newsstand, I had to buy a copy of Time.
>>
>> Notice that Time framed the Person of the Year as "you." That should 
>> sound
>> familiar. Almost every major marketing campaign these days is about
>> empowering "you."
>>
>> "You" have freedom of choice. "You" can let yourself be profiled so that
>> "you" only receive solicitations from companies that interest "you." 
>> "You"
>> could customize "your" mobile phone with the "Hollaback Girl" ringtone,
>> but "you" would not because that's so 2004. So you choose Ne-Yo's "Sexy
>> Love" instead. "You" go to the Nike Store to get your own design of 
>> shoes.
>> Because "you" roll like that. After all, "you" are an "Army of One."
>>
>> But to quote the Who, "Who are You?" Are you the sum of your consumer
>> preferences and MySpace personae? What is your contribution worth? It's
>> worth money to someone, if only as part of a whole.
>>
>> We have simply let a handful of new corporations aggregate and exercise
>> their own will on us. And we have perfected online dating.
>>
>> Google, for instance, only makes money because it harvests, copies,
>> aggregates, and ranks billions of Web contributions by millions of 
>> authors
>> who unknowingly grant Google the right to capitalize, or "free ride," on
>> their work. Who are you to Google? To Amazon? Do "you" really deserve an
>> award for allowing yourself to be rendered so flatly and cravenly? Do you
>> deserve an award because media mogul Rupert Murdoch can make money
>> capturing your creativity via his new toy, MySpace?
>>
>> The important movement online is not about "you." It's about "us." It's
>> about our profound need to connect and share. It's about our remarkable
>> ability to create among circles ―  each person contributing a little bit
>> to a poem, a song, a quilt, or a conversation.
>>
>> So it's not about your reviews on Amazon. It's about how we as a 
>> community
>> of Web users choose to exercise our collective wills and forge collective
>> consciousnesses. So far, we have declined to do so. We have not harnessed
>> this communicative power to force the rich and powerful to stop polluting
>> our air and water or to stop the spread of AIDS or malaria. We have not
>> brought down any tyrants. We have simply let a handful of new 
>> corporations
>> aggregate and exercise their own will on us. And we have perfected online
>> dating.
>>
>> But there are signs of real profound triumphs of "We." Wikipedia is the
>> best example. Blogs are another. Communities ― both local and global ―
>> have generated amazing collections of content and communication in recent
>> years. They have truly challenged the status-quo in ways that Time hypes
>> so well.
>>
>> Discuss: Why should YOU be the Person of the Year?
>>
>> During the Southeast Asian Tsunami of December 2004 we relied on video 
>> and
>> photo blogs to give us a vivid account of the devastation. No collection
>> of professional reporters could be in every important place at the same
>> time. Only the grand, networked "we" could have shown us the vastness and
>> gravity of that event. Compared to the instant, global Tsunami coverage,
>> nothing that LonelyGirl15 or Tila Tequila did on MySpace matters at all.
>>
>> The Time article describes this "Web 2.0" phenomenon as a "revolution."
>> Let's be very careful about that term. First of all, a real revolution
>> would be a radical rupture in the flow of history. I would submit that
>> what we now call "user-generated content" has always been a major part of
>> the American media diet.
>>
>> Take a look at a copy from 1910 of the Daily Forward, the newspaper for
>> immigrant New York Jews, and you will find a major portion of it devoted
>> to letters from its community of readers. People wrote in asking for
>> advice. Others responded with advice. The Forward, like all community
>> newspapers back when community newspapers mattered, made itself essential
>> by facilitating public deliberation and giving voice to the voiceless.
>>
>> Now, to keep even that phenomenon in perspective, it's important to
>> realize that today's Web grants all of us who are wealthy enough to 
>> afford
>> one of these computer gizmos and a subscription to enough bandwidth the
>> ability to both broadcast and narrowcast even the most mundane and
>> irrelevant of expressions. So we do. The Forward, of course, carefully
>> selected its published letters and responses. Not everyone who wanted a
>> voice got one.
>> Story continues below ↓ advertisement
>>
>> And ever since the rise of radio producers realized the value of the
>> "real," the authentic, and the common. Audiences love to hear or see
>> people whom are no more talented or important than they are. It's
>> comforting to know that with a little luck someone might care what I
>> think.
>>
>> It's part of a slippery slope between true democratic culture and crass
>> commercial culture. Because we all matter equally in the polis we pretend
>> we all might matter equally in the public square. Granting that illusory
>> wish can be very profitable.
>>
>> So what's truly revolutionary about the current communicative moment is
>> part of a 20-year process of the steady proliferation of digitization and
>> networking in the hands of millions of people. It's not about a 
>> handful of
>> sites that make such connections easier and cheaper. Those are valuable
>> changes. But they are not revolutionary in and of themselves.
>>
>> The results of this revolution (Of the late-20th and early 21st centuries
>> ― not of 2006) are hard to gauge. I tend to see them as substantially
>> positive. More people have a chance to be heard on matters of public
>> concern. And more artists and songwriters have a chance to find audiences
>> without selling out to bullying corporations. And as consumers, we have a
>> better chance of avoiding exorbitant prices for goods when the Web links
>> us to more competing vendors than our local main street markets (or
>> Wal-Mart) used to offer.
>>
>> But we should not be blind to the costs as well. While we find it easier
>> to "link" to "friends" thousands of miles away because they also
>> appreciate the musical stylings of Coldplay, we spend less time in the
>> presence of our neighbors ― the folks who would come knocking (we hope)
>> when they notice those community newspapers (that we probably no longer
>> get) piling up on our doorstep.
>>
>> As sociologist Eric Klinenberg explains in his brilliant new book 
>> Fighting
>> for Air: The Battle to Control America's Media, media concentration
>> remains a formidable problem. Not long ago, in times of need, we could
>> rely on our local radio stations and newspapers to help us deal with
>> dangers and help our neighbors. No more. The lack of local,
>> community-based communication (thanks to more automated radio stations 
>> and
>> consultant-driven playlists) endangers us all, especially during times of
>> crisis and disaster.
>>
>> User-generated content, whether via low-power radio or community blogs,
>> only goes so far to fill the void. And if the subject of that content is
>> "you," instead of "us," we gain nothing from the new medium.
>>
>> We do ourselves a major disservice when we exaggerate the revolutionary
>> power of ourselves as individuals. Narcissism may be good marketing. But
>> it's not good for humanity.
>>
>> Siva Vaidhyanathan is an associate professor of Culture and Communication
>> at New York University. His latest book is The Anarchist in the Library:
>> How the Clash Between Freedom and Control is Hacking the Real World and
>> Crashing the System (Basic Books, 2004). He blogs at Sivacracy.net.
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
> 

-- 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Carlos A. Afonso
diretor de planejamento
Rede de Informações para o Terceiro Setor - Rits
http://www.rits.org.br
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